


And to live with your ghost

by StarrySkies282



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Author Is Sleep Deprived, F/M, Grief, Poor Clint, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), dealing with grief, i'm sorry guys, this is largely unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-06 17:24:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19067206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarrySkies282/pseuds/StarrySkies282
Summary: He didn’t want to forget her. The exact shade of her eyes, the red of her hair. The curve of her smile. The way she’d roll her eyes at him. The exact intonation of her voice. He didn’t want her to fade.





	And to live with your ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Owww Nat's death really cut me up :(  
> And then I wrote this.  
> I’m about to become really busy with exams, but hopefully in between or after I’ll be able to write some sort of Endgame fix-it because I just can’t leave Nat dead.  
> Anyways, hope you guys enjoy this, and feedback is always appreciated x

He didn’t want to forget her. The exact shade of her eyes, the red of her hair. The curve of her smile. The way she’d roll her eyes at him. The exact intonation of her voice. He didn’t want her to fade.

 

He sees her everywhere. At home, at the grocery store, in his son who is _named_ after her, just walking along the road.

She’s always there, just out of reach.

Every time he’s tried to run to her, every time he tries to speak, to say _I’m sorry_ , to say _it should have been me_ , she vanishes. Teasing him almost. Something he’ll never get back. And still he clings to her.

The smell of her perfume, the sound of her laugh, the weight of her hand pressed in his.

 

_A cliff, the sky rippling grey, a black-cloaked figure. Foreheads pressed together. A struggle, gripping the side of a cliff. His own broken voice croaking out “damn you.”_

_Her hand in his. She’s trying to smile. “Let me go. It’s okay,” she says, but it’s the exact opposite. He never will be._

_“No!” The screams. The sickness he feels as he watches her fall._

 

Clint wakes in the dark, moonlight seeping in through the window, his entire body shaking, drenched in sweat, sobs wracking his form.

Laura is there. Laura, Laura, Laura who has been there with him since almost the beginning. Her hand, comforting on his back, the other holding his hand tightly.

“It’s my fault,” he chokes out finally. “I should have gone. It should have been me. I shouldn’t have let her go.”

It pains Laura to see him this way. Broken. And it’s all she can to not break as well. Because God she misses Nat.

“I keep seeing her,” he says after a pause. “She’s everywhere... and I can’t tell her how sorry I am. How she didn’t have to... How there was no debt she needed to repay. How there was no red in her ledger. I can’t tell her how she was the best of us.” Laura inhaled sharply. “I can’t tell her anything anymore.” He added quietly.

The tears come fresh again.

“Oh Clint,” murmurs Laura, holding him close. Tightly. Holding him together.

 

—

 

People keep telling him it will get better with time. That it gets easier. For the first part, it doesn’t. It’s like sleepwalking or some sort of nightmare. Because he can’t quite get his head around the fact that Nat is gone.

Her who was so full of life who had always seemed so infallible, who had cheated death so many times— more times than even he had. And yet now she was gone. Left a huge hole in his life where the other half of Strike Team Delta should have been.

The memories are still there, raw as ever.

_Tell them yourself._

Her voice, he could still hear it.

_She thought she still owed him a debt. He thought he had already made it clear she didn’t. They were both wrong._

He had tried to go back for her body, because how could he leave her there, alone forever on that hellish, distant planet so void of life, guarded by the Red Skull.

But he was stopped.

_“She is no longer here, Clint Barton. She has given her soul for the stone. She has moved on.”_

_Clint wanted to cry out, to shout, to put an arrow through this red bastard. Indeed, he did the first two and tried the third, but instead the arrow went sailing right through, clattering to the ground._

_“Your business is finished here,” he said with finality._

_Clint knew so too, and with a last look he left, vowing that Natasha, who had been his best friend, his sister, would not have died in vain. That they would bring back the others. For Natasha. Whatever it takes. Because she had died believing that there was a way to fix all of this. For them to succeed. He had to make sure it happened. For her._

 

And they had won. They had all come back. She had given him his family back. But she could not return. She who still did not seem to fully realise she was part of his family too.

Clint had already asked Bruce if there was any way. Any possibility.

He gave him a sad smile, filled with grief and blame and regret.

“I’m sorry Clint, I really tried to bring her back.”

“It’s alright,” Clint says. Because what else can he say, even if it isn’t alright.

Clint had hoped, he had sorely hoped that Steve going to return the soul stone would bring her back.

It didn’t.

 

—

Sometimes he would forget what had happened. They all would.

Clint would be half way through trying to send a message to her, encrypted, before realising she wasn’t undercover anywhere or on a mission. 

Laura would go to call her from her room for breakfast, and remember she was no longer with them, finding the room empty. She would cry then.

Nathaniel would ask when auntie Nat was coming to visit, and would run to the door every time the bell rang.

Lila would still draw pictures for Nat, forgetting she wouldn’t be able to give them to her. She missed her coming to help her train, to teach her a new move, to encourage her with a smile.

Even Cooper would forget, and ask how Nat was, if his father has heard from her lately.

And then they would stop and silence would settle with the weight of realisation.

Natasha was gone.

 

The pain didn’t go away. They still all hated it. Not a day went by when Clint wouldn’t think about her. About what she would have said in a certain situation, how she would have reacted, how she would have laughed.

He’d think up conversations they would have had together, he’d even still have them, as though she was still there to respond. It helped him a little.

There were empty seats at school shows, an empty place at the dinner table, one less person’s presents under the Christmas tree. But in time, Clint saw his children bounce back, talking about Nat again, full of ‘do you remember whens.’ He would even overhear them asking themselves and each other ‘what would Auntie Nat do?’

It took a while but eventually Clint was able to talk about her, tell the stories of their missions, how much Nat thought he was an idiot, all the pranks they had played on each other over the years.

He was able to laugh again. For his children.

Nat had given him his children back, given him Laura back. And for that, he would be eternally grateful for.

Laura helped him to realise that Natasha would not have wanted him to wallow, his children helped him to see that he _could_ move on, that it was _okay_ to. That he could still honour and remember and love Natasha while continuing the life she had given him back. And that was what he held on to. He’d do it for her.


End file.
